Digital Commons Network^™

Process Modeling, Operability Analysis, And Techno-Economic Optimization Of Soecs For Sustainable H2 Production, Krishna Murthy Busam

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The global imperative to decarbonize energy systems has intensified research into sustainable hydrogen production pathways, as hydrogen emerges as a critical energy carrier for sectors difficult to electrify directly. Among water electrolysis technologies, solid oxide electrolyzer cells operating at elevated temperatures offer the highest theoretical efficiency by utilizing thermal energy to reduce electrical energy requirements, yet comprehensive frameworks integrating electrochemical modeling with process operability analysis and techno-economic optimization remain scarce in the literature. This dissertation develops a process systems framework for proton-conducting solid oxide electrolyzer cells that bridges the gap between fundamental electrochemical phenomena and industrial-scale process economics. At the …

Success Coaching And Conditional Admit Student Success, Zachery Oliver Thayer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Student success is a matter of critical importance to institutions of higher education, and to students. Colleges and universities exist in a current context of decreasing supply of potential students as a result of an impending demographic cliff and, therefore, increased competition for those remaining students, all while many institutions have become more tuition-dependent. This creates an incentive to decrease selectivity in order to meet enrollment goals as well as to focus university resources on student success measures that impact retention.  Some institutions have decreased selectivity to the point of admitting students conditionally or provisionally, even if those students do …

Assessing Flood Resilience In West Virginia Communities: Integrating Physical, Institutional, Socioeconomic, And Environmental Dimensions, Anahita Mahmoudi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Flooding is one of the most frequent and damaging natural hazards in the United States, with impacts expected to intensify under changing climate conditions. In regions such as West Virginia, complex terrain, development patterns along river corridors, and socioeconomic disparities contribute to elevated flood risk. Traditional approaches to flood risk assessment often focus on single dimensions of vulnerability or rely on binary floodplain maps, which do not fully capture the spatial variability and multidimensional nature of flood resilience.

This dissertation develops an integrated, community-scale framework for assessing flood resilience in West Virginia by combining physical, environmental, institutional, and socioeconomic dimensions …

Bridging Physics-Based Modeling And Machine Learning To Predict Material Behavior: Applications In Fatigue Crack Growth And Dielectric Property Characterization, Ansan Pokharel

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation integrates physics-based modeling with machine learning (ML) to predict how materials behave under complex thermal and mechanical conditions. A key innovation of this work is the use of finite element analysis (FEA) to supplement experimental data. This approach creates more diverse and representative synthetic datasets, helping to reduce the limitations and biases that arise when training ML models solely on experimental measurements. The research focuses on two applications: improving the prediction of fatigue properties in superalloys and estimating temperature-dependent, high-frequency dielectric properties relevant to microwave-based chemical processing.

In the first study, low-cycle fatigue experiments were performed on the …

Statistical Analysis Of Evidence In Criminal Cases, Giuliana Leon Carrillo

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Ideally, the evaluation of relevant forensic evidence must corroborate the hypotheses that the prosecution and/or the defense holds regarding the commitment of a crime. Therefore, optimal forensic evidence would be the one that can be found all the time under the same circumstances, and cannot be found otherwise, making the forensic scientist able to evaluate this evidence given the hypotheses provided. Nevertheless, this is hard to find, as ideal evidence being only a concept.

In this project, the probabilistic interpretation of relevant forensic evidence investigated in criminal cases with the aid of Wigmore charts and Bayesian networks was proposed. Using …

A Digital Calibration Source For 21 Cm Cosmology Telescopes, Kalyani Balkrishna Bhopi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Precise calibration of radio telescope beams and gains is a central requirement for 21 cm intensity mapping experiments, which aim to measure large scale cosmological structure through the redshifted emission line of neutral hydrogen. Bright astrophysical foregrounds dominate the sky at these frequencies, and separating them from the cosmological signal demands precise control over instrumental systematics, particularly the telescope beam and its frequency-dependent response. Existing aerial calibration sources are incoherent broadband emitters, detectable only as total power. They provide no direct phase information and suffer from poor sensitivity in low signal-to-noise regimes.

We present the Precision Emitter for 21cm Array …

Global Weak Solutions Of Optical Variational Wave System, Shahrazad Hamed Alnafie

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

                                                       ABSTRACT

                   Global Weak Solutions of Optical Variational Wave System

                                        Shahrazad Hamed Mahal Alnafie

The coupling of a variational wave equation with Maxwell’s equations gives rise to the optical variational wave system, a hyperbolic PDE system that models the director field of the nematic liquid crystals. This system presents unique analytical challenges that have not been addressed in the existing literature. In this dissertation, we study the one-dimensional case of this system.

We establish the global existence of conservative weak solutions to the associated Cauchy problem. The hyperbolic system is derived using the energy variational method. Through a sequence of suitable …

A New Parsimony-Based Method For Reconstructing Sequences Of Developmental Events And Estimating Rates Of Intraspecific Variation, With Applications To Trilobites, Alexander Benjamin Bradley

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Ontogenetic Sequence Analysis (OSA) is a method for reconstructing multiple sequences of abrupt phenotypic transformations (developmental events) for sampled populations of any kind of organism. It makes use of cladistic parsimony software to produce a network, or graph, whose vertices represent unique phenotypes at different stages of maturity (“semaphoronts”) and whose edges describe the developmental events occurring between semaphoronts. It is a powerful tool for constraining the range of developmental variation possible for a given species and generating sample statistics capable of identifying both the most common and the outlier ontogenetic sequences. However, OSA has seen little use since its …

Swarm Of One: Self-Organization In Multicellular Robots, Trevor Riley Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Designing robots traditionally relies on centralized, top-down methods that constrain adaptability and resiliency, producing systems optimized for specific tasks. However, such systems often fail in complex environments, such as extraterrestrial, disaster, or natural settings, where designers cannot foresee every scenario a robot may encounter. Achieving autonomy in these contexts requires robots that are resilient and capable of adapting to the unknown. Multicellular organisms exhibit this adaptability through self-organization, where complex structures and behaviors emerge from local interactions among their cells. Such organisms can be viewed simultaneously as a single entity and a swarm of cooperating cells, i.e., a Swarm-of-One.

This …

Development Of Novel Methods For Investigative Leads In Firearm And Explosive Related Incidents, Addio Joseph Fiordigigli Jr.

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Criminal outbreaks and gun violence persist as a multifaceted global crisis, marked by escalating rates of homicide, suicide, and terrorism that destabilize communities and strain public resources. The proliferation of illicit firearms and homemade explosive devices, along with the complexity of modern criminal networks, necessitates innovative scientific tools to strengthen preventive intelligence operations and ensure that the legal process is grounded in physical evidence. More efficient detection of traces left behind at a crime scene can help prevent further harm or injury from follow-up attacks. This study aims to develop and evaluate new triage methods for characterizing gunshot residues (GSR) …

New Fossil Mygalomorph Spiders (?Idiopidae, Pycnothelidae) From The Lower Cretaceous Crato Formation Of Brazil, Elis Maria Gomes Santana

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The infraorder Mygalomorphae represents one of the earliest-diverging lineages of spiders, but its fossil record remains sparse relative to the modern diversity of the group. This is a reflection of both ecological and preservational biases, such as the predominantly fossorial habits of many mygalomorphs and the strong bias of the spider fossil record toward amber deposits. Compression fossils from rock deposits are therefore especially important for documenting the evolutionary history of the group. Here, two new mygalomorph fossils from the Lower Cretaceous Crato Formation, Araripe Basin (Brazil) are described. The first specimen is tentatively referred to ?Idiopidae based on male …

Development And Validation Of A Multi-Output Neural Network-Based Virtual Temperature Sensor For Electric Vehicle Thermal Management, Dalton Michael Wiggins

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) rely on accurate thermal management to ensure component performance, efficiency, safety, and long-term durability. Critical propulsion system components, including electric motors and high-voltage battery packs, are commonly monitored using physical temperature sensors. However, these sensors increase system cost, introduce additional hardware complexity, and may be impractical for directly measuring temperatures at critical internal locations. Virtual temperature sensors (VTSs) provide a software-based alternative by estimating component temperatures using readily available vehicle operating data.

This research presents the development and validation of a long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network-based virtual temperature sensor capable of simultaneously estimating the motor …

Multiphysics Modeling Of Microwave-Assisted Calcination Of Soec Perovskite Precursors, Hongwei Liu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The calcination of precursor powders is a critical step in the synthesis of solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs), where phase purity and microstructural control directly influence electrochemical performance. Conventional calcination methods are energy-intensive and time-consuming, often requiring prolonged high-temperature processing. In this thesis, microwave-assisted calcination is investigated as an alternative approach to enable rapid, energy-efficient processing of SOEC per- ovskite precursor powders. Microwave heating offers distinct advantages, including volumetric and selective heating, reduced processing times, and improved energy utilization compared to con- ventional thermal methods. A multiphysics modeling framework is developed, which integrates electromagnetic wave propagation, governed by Maxwell’s equations, …

Computer Vision Methods For Rfi Segmentation In Radio Astronomy, Yechan Kweon

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) increasingly contaminates the radio astronomy spectrum, often exceeding astronomical signal amplitudes by 50–70 dB. Reliable detection and mitigation are therefore essential for studies of faint transient phenomena such as pulsars and fast radio bursts (FRBs). Existing practical methods including Spectral Kurtosis (SK), Median Absolute Deviation (MAD), and SumThreshold perform well in many settings but depend on assumptions about the RFI environment and data statistics, limiting their effectiveness for weak, broadband, or nonstationary interference.

We develop a transform based RFI detection method that requires no prior knowledge of the RFI origin or type. The method operates on …

Semantic-Weighted Lidar–Camera Slam For Robust Mapping In Vegetation-Rich Environments, David Aigbovboise Akhihiero

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Many LiDAR odometry and SLAM methods are lightweight and effective, but they assume that all LiDAR point returns are equally reliable. In practice, this assumption is often violated in vegetation rich or semi transparent environments, where in a single beam footprint, LiDAR beams may intersect multiple scattering surfaces like leaves, branches or glass. These ambiguities in returns produces probabilistic or biased range measurements that violate the assumptions of most geometric registration frameworks and can lead to drift and inconsistency.

To address this challenge, this dissertation proposes a semantic-weighted LiDAR-camera SLAM framework that integrates class dependent weights into a front-end LiDAR …

Essays On Public Policy, Labor Markets, And Regional Economics, Toby Heaney

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation consists of three empirical essays examining how economic and political outcomes respond to changes in public policy, information, and local economic conditions. Across the three studies, the dissertation applies empirical methods to questions in political economy, economic forecasting, and regional economics, with particular attention to how the effects of economic shocks and policy changes vary across individuals, markets, and geographic areas.

The first essay examines the role of policy salience in electoral outcomes. Building on rational-choice and median-voter models, it argues that voters may respond disproportionately to policies that impose concentrated and highly visible costs, even when those …

Comparing Unet And Hrnet For Geomorphic Feature Extraction From Digital Terrain Model-Derived Land Surface Parameters, Behnam Solouki

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Automated extraction of geomorphic features from high spatial resolution terrain data is important for environmental monitoring, geohazard assessment, and landscape change analysis. This study compares two convolutional neural network architectures, UNet and High-Resolution Network (HRNet), for semantic segmentation of mine benches and sinkholes from lidar-derived digital terrain models and land surface parameters. Mine benches represent anthropogenic, elongated, stepped landforms associated with historic surface mining, whereas sinkholes are natural, compact depressions common in karst terrain. Three terrain-derived input layers were used: square-root-transformed slope, broad-scale topographic position index, and fine-scale annulus topographic position index. Models were trained using five training sample sizes, …

Timing, Spectral, And Single-Pulse Properties Of Radio Pulsars, Evan Francis Lewis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Radio pulsars are highly magnetized, rapidly rotating neutron stars which emit beams of radio waves from their magnetic poles. Their incredible rotational stability allows for their use in a variety of high-energy astrophysical studies, though the details of their internal structure and emission mechanisms are still unknown. We use observations of a cross-section of the pulsar population in order to investigate the nature of their evolution, their emission properties, and their environments.

First we derive timing solutions for three pulsars discovered through their sporadic single pulses. It was possible to obtain timing solutions through a set of single-pulse times of …

Unsuccessful? Universal Human Rights And The United Nations: Russian Imperialism In Ukraine And The Post-Udhr International System, Sofiia Novytska

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Human universality has always stood as a controversial subject and remains politically contentious today. Following the humanitarian crisis of World War II, the international community was determined to protect the integrity and dignity of people worldwide by developing the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, universal human rights were not invented by the Declaration and were already conceptually established in global ancient thought, further evolved into Early Modern scholarship, and later paved the way for modern humanitarian frameworks. The UDHR was not universally well-received, and was criticized for its revolutionary legal character, postcolonial contestation, and practical ambiguity. The …

Sedimentological And Geochemical Investigation Of The Origin Of Upper Pennsylvanian Black Shales, East-Central Appalachian Basin, Tyler Hickey

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the east-central Allegheny foreland basin, laminated black shales overlying Upper Pennsylvanian Glenshaw Fm. coal seams record paleoenvironmental conditions associated with the termination of peat swamp deposition before, during, and after the Carboniferous Coal Forest Collapse (CCFC), a major paleobotanical evolutionary event during the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA) that contributed to extinction of lepidodendrons near the Desmoinesian-Missourian boundary (~306 Ma). Previous investigations of the CCFC commonly implicate an episode of aridification during intensification of LPIA glaciation that stressed the lepidodendrons beyond their ecological tipping point; however, the cause of this aridification is unclear. An investigation of Glenshaw Fm. black …

How Do Reading Specialists Shape Their Identities As Literacy Leaders? An Exploration Of Competence, Performance, And Recognition Within Communities Of Practice, Christina Glance Petrone

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This qualitative multiple-case study explored how reading specialists enact literacy leadership within elementary schools in West Virginia. Although reading specialists are increasingly expected to support schoolwide literacy improvement, leadership responsibilities are not always explicitly defined within their roles. Guided by a communities of practice framework and an identity model, this study examined how reading specialists develop and demonstrate literacy leadership through their daily interactions with teachers, administrators, and other school personnel. Data sources included participant questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with participants, their principals, and colleagues from their school. Participants in this study included three reading specialists (interventionists) working in K-5 …

Evaluation Of Potential Factors Limiting The Expansion Of Invasive Carp (Hypophthalmichthys Spp.) In The Ohio River Basin, Erin Shepta

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The introduction of aquatic invasive species is one of the greatest threats to freshwater biodiversity around the world. Two species of invasive carp, bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) and silver carp (H. molitrix) have spread throughout much of the Mississippi River Basin, resulting in serious ecological impacts to native communities. Their spread in the Ohio River, a major tributary of the Mississippi River, appears to have slowed, with limited evidence of upstream advancements. Here, we investigated abiotic and biotic factors that may be contributing to the reduced spread of invasive carp in the Ohio River Basin. Generally, …

Cell-To-Pack Modeling Of Lithium-Ion Batteries: From Bayesian Parameterization To Pack-Level Optimization, Derek Slack

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

One of the major hurdles for electric or hybrid aviation is the comparative energy density between lithium-ion batteries and jet fuel. To help obtain maximal power-to-weight ratio in electric or hybrid powertrains the battery pack design should be optimized to be as light as possible while meeting thermal safety and power requirements. The proposed solution is an optimization routine beginning with a cell-level parameter estimation of lithium-ion battery cells, where data driven Bayesian Gaussian Processes replace empirically or analytically derived parameters in a first principles electrochemical model in PyBaMM, as functions of the transient state of the cell. The resulting …

Dielectrophoretic Biomarkers For Cancer Detection And Cell Analysis: Integrating Microfluidics And Ai, Raphael Olumide Oladokun

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) carries a five-year survival rate of 13%, driven largely by late-stage diagnosis and the absence of sensitive noninvasive screening tools. Current diagnostic methods lack the sensitivity to detect disease-associated systemic changes at early and precancerous stages, representing a critical clinical gap. This dissertation addresses the central hypothesis that PDAC and its pathological subtypes induce measurable, disease-associated electrophysiological changes in circulating PBMCs that can serve as correlative liquid-biopsy biomarkers. To test this hypothesis, this work asks: can dielectrophoresis (DEP), impedance and zeta potential analysis with AI-assisted classification distinguish benign pancreatic conditions (non-malignant control), precancerous lesions (primarily IPMNs), …

Optimization Of The Cmc Algorithm, Christopher Joseph Moner

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Cartridge cases recovered from discharged firearms contain tool marks produced by the internal mechanisms of said firearm. Firearm and tool mark examiners com pare these marks to determine whether two cartridge cases originated from the same firearm. Traditional comparison methods have been criticized for their subjective nature and reliance on examiner interpretation rather than objective decision thresholds. The Congruent Matching Cells (CMC) algorithm was developed as a quantitative, objective method for tool mark comparison. CMC is a surface topography correlation algorithm that partitions a tool mark into small regions, or cells, and evaluates their similarity using the areal cross-correlation function …

Preliminary Analysis Of Soil Volatile Organic Compounds As Soil Health Indicators, Thorne Taul

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Over the past decade, soil health (SH) has gained popularity due to the novelty of sustainable soil use related to human wellbeing. Soil health describes the overall quality of soil and its capacity to function over time. As interest in SH grows, researchers continue to explore new soil health indicators that can improve knowledge on how soil health is assessed and managed. Some indicators directly reflect soil health status, and some indirectly relate to processes and functions occurring within the soil. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are naturally occurring compounds that play a role in multiple soil processes. They are associated …

Enhancing Chime Data Integrity: Utilizing An Ancillary Antenna To Detect And Mask Radio Frequency Interference, John W. Metzger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is a radio telescope array designed to map Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) and detect Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) within the 400-800 MHz frequency range. However, man-made Radio Frequency Interference (RFI), such as television broadcasts and cellular signals, significantly degrade data integrity and mask weak astronomical signals. This thesis details the design, simulation, and implementation of a slotted waveguide antenna at the Green Bank Outrigger (GBO) to detect and mask RFI. Utilizing cross-correlation, the system identifies similarities between the telescope and the horizon- pointing antenna to isolate interference. Mathematical models were used to determine …

Multimodal Representation Learning For Face Understanding: From Caption Supervision To Foundation Model Adaptation, Md Mahedi Hasan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The rapid advancement of intelligent surveillance systems and the increasing demand for reliable biometric identification in border security, public safety, and digital forensics require robust face understanding under unconstrained conditions, including low resolution, pose variation, and occlusion. While Vision Transformer (ViT)-based foundation models have greatly improved visual representation learning, their patch-based tokenization and lack of spatial inductive bias limit their ability to capture fine-grained details in low-resolution inputs. This dissertation investigates multimodal representation learning for face understanding through natural language supervision, large-scale face-caption pre-training, and parameter-efficient foundation model adaptation. It hypothesizes that textual supervision provides complementary semantic cues that improve …

Deep Learning-Based Co-Current Upward Gas-Liquid Two-Phase Flow Regime Identification In An Annular Conduit, Joshua Robert Macomber

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Flow regime identification in co-current upward gas-liquid flow through annular conduits remains a significant challenge in petroleum engineering, with major safety and operational implications. It is also important across industries involving the transport of multiphase fluids. Misidentifying flow regimes can introduce major operational risk, yet regime boundaries in annular gas-liquid flow are often visually complex and context dependent.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the utility of convolutional neural network (CNN) classifiers for flow regime identification. The CNN was trained using annular flow image dataset published by Texas A&M University. The dataset consists of approximately 947 RGB images …

Studies On The Depth Formula And On Reducing Dimensions, Brian Mccourt Laverty

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation presents the author’s recent research, conducted under the supervision of Professor Olgur Celikbas, and based on two articles—one published and one in progress. These works develop two closely related research directions in commutative algebra. Together, they contribute to the subject by addressing aspects of existing conjectures, establishing new results, and introducing methods for studying homological invariants.

The first research direction concerns the depth formula, namely the equality \[ \depth_R(M)+\depth_R(N)=\depth(R)+\depth_R(M\otimes_RN) \] where $M$ and $N$ are finitely generated $R$-modules. A classical result of Auslander \cite{Aus} shows that the depth formula holds provided that either $M$ or $N$ has finite …